Bigger than any Brinks robbery, but never mentioned in the corporate headlines has been the theft of America.
For the past twenty five years, with over half of that theft occurring within the past six years of total Republican domination of Washington, there has been a stealth effort that has stolen America's future through a constant drumbeat of actions such as tax relief for the wealthy and tax burden shifting to the poor and the young.
The only hint of recognizing the obvious by corporate media outlets has been on the issue of Social Security; yet the sham headlines have singled out social security in order to make theft of this last bastion of economic security to the working American possible through privatization.
Calling Social Security bankrupt is not at all true. It is the Social Security trust fund which has been stolen from for years to pay for other actions of government - usually tax cuts for the wealthy or allowances through programs that are not self sufficient.
The result is that today the top 1% of Americans in wealth actually own over 16% of the nation's total wealth and without ownership control over 1/3 of the total economic moves of the country. This doesn't speak for the lobbying power and leveraging that happens on their behalf throughout the nation's local, state and national governments. Policy is built and shaped by those who buy favor through contributions, and one major tool is to keep the cost of business going up - whether in business or politics- and thereby disenfranchise those who might otherwise contest such actions.
Since this is an introductory piece to a new topic, I'm keeping most of the details and baffling actions out of the discussion. What I'd sincerely like is to get people to look for themselves and begin to compare notes.
This is the real point of America and the real driving factor of the November, 2006 vote.
We know something is drastically wrong in America, but do we know how wrong it is or how bad it has become or what it really is? Has it actually engulfed you enough that you're reacting out of factual knowledge or are we just reacting to impulses and instincts?
I think we're at the early stages of our reaction. It's at these early stages that the early "fight or flight" reaction sets in. The mountain seems insurmountable. But it is not.
Look around. This nation is a nation of greed. We don't have to hear Osama Bin Laden say it to see it. Our economy is purely based upon consumption logic. If retail sales don't show enough increase over last year, the stock market crashes. The level of personal savings is at an all time low and almost unmeasureable. In fact, personal savings other than accumulated wealth in homes has dropped for five straight years. We live in a sea of disposable everything, and see Christmas shopping for items that will be disposed of within months - not years.
When landfills are controlled by mob like organizations and businesses yet one of the most critical issues of local policy is solid waste, we can easily measure the level of disposable society we live in.
This disposable, greed culture that we live in is fueled by advertising, campaigning, public policy, and building into our younger generations this desire to "compete" on the basis of style and image - not on the basis of true production.
But lacking is the education of the price and the toll that is being paid. The tax load of the highest brackets of income have all been reduced at least 40% since 1980. The tax load of the middle brackets have all increased. How can anyone deny that the tax burden is being shifted from the super wealthy to the working middle class - where the bulk of the families live?
These are the people who supposedly sit on PTA committees and school boards. Yet none of our curriculum contains the discussion of "how to accumulate wealth" which begins with productivity and saving; not consumerism, spending or style and image. Why is that core education missing?
We wonder why young people are slow to become a part of our local communities. Could it be that they view themselves as inheriting the bills of hypocritical approaches, without having an ounce of power to sit at the table or control their own destiny? I think so.
It's this feeling of despair that also shapes the face of America. Step over the obvious economic issues of strategic level productivity and look at skyrocketing costs of medical care, crime and associated costs of non-productivity and we understand that the true cost of consumerism and consumption based thinking has never been measured, linked nor evaluated.
